Some Sources of Misunderstandings in Intercultural Business Communication

Abstract

It is always a big challenge for all types of companies anywhere in the world to survive in the globalised and accelerated world. Their primary objective is to stay competitive, keep or even enlarge their market share while keeping their costs at a minimum level. These corporations often cross borders and operate on a multinational level. In order to do that successfully they need flexible workforce: people who have a high level of intercultural competencies and can help their corporations to achieve their aim of profit maximising. It is widely accepted that culture and languages are among the most significant impacts on intercultural communication. In this paper first I am going to interpret intercultural communication and the role of culture and then look at different intercultural skills and the role of languages in intercultural communication. Some areas that might cause problems in intercultural business communication will also be described.

Upward Intercultural Communication in Multinational Company: What Matters the Most

“…Unfortunately, a range of barriers might happen when communicating with people from other cultures, such as stereotyping, perception, attitude, culture shock, physical aspect, motivation, split of attention, emotion, language, non-verbal message, communication media and filtering. Stereotyping is valuing judgment about people (Braslauskas, 2020;Jenifer & Raman, 2015), while perception is viewing what is said from one's own mindset (Lázár, 2017). Attitude is a guide to general thinking and one's views of life (Tuleja, 2022).…”

“…Culture shock is a result of unfamiliarity with the new surroundings (Hamze, 2020). Chaney & Martin (2014) in Lázár (2017) stated that physical aspects such as time, environment, comfort and needs may create obstacles to effective communication. While motivation as the listener's mental inertia also plays an important role in communication (Lázár, 2017;Zhang & Zhou, 2021).…”

“…Chaney & Martin (2014) in Lázár (2017) stated that physical aspects such as time, environment, comfort and needs may create obstacles to effective communication. While motivation as the listener's mental inertia also plays an important role in communication (Lázár, 2017;Zhang & Zhou, 2021). To achieve effective communication, one must not have a split of attention or attention constraints (Holm et al, 2020).…”

“…To achieve effective communication, one must not have a split of attention or attention constraints (Holm et al, 2020). Emotion or personal feelings of the listeners contributed to the effectiveness of communication as well (Lázár, 2017). Different languages spoken by the speakers and listeners and also the use of vocabulary beyond the comprehension of the listeners can become a barrier in intercultural communication [Hamze (2020), Lázár (2017), Tuleja (2022].…”

“…Emotion or personal feelings of the listeners contributed to the effectiveness of communication as well (Lázár, 2017). Different languages spoken by the speakers and listeners and also the use of vocabulary beyond the comprehension of the listeners can become a barrier in intercultural communication [Hamze (2020), Lázár (2017), Tuleja (2022]. Non-verbal or non-word messages (Lázár, 2017) conveys different meanings in different cultures and may create communication barriers.…”